


Hot Water, Curious Hands, Familiar Mouths

by sopdetly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bathtubs, Fluff and Angst, M/M, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11726112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sopdetly/pseuds/sopdetly
Summary: In the summers, he took his baths alone, but the rest of the time, especially in late fall and through to early spring, he’d had company.It didn’t occur to him, really, that he might get to have company again. And yet.





	Hot Water, Curious Hands, Familiar Mouths

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [theemdash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theemdash) for swift and sweet beta, as well as the thoughtful and detailed prompt of "Bathtub time!" that apparently worked wonders! ♥ It's my first new R/S in years, honestly, and it's nice to be back with the boys again.

Less than a week to Full and he already needs the hot water and steam to soothe his body’s aches. He’s spent so long trying not to think about the past, about life before the first war, that Remus is surprised now to remember how this used to go, after Hogwarts but before everything went utterly mad.

Back then, nearly twenty years ago, he only needed it the two nights before the transformation. Even in the heat of summer, he’d put on some cooling and air flow charms in the bathroom while he filled the tub with hot water. In the summers, he took his baths alone, but the rest of the time, especially in late fall and through to early spring, he’d had company.

It didn’t occur to him, really, that he might get to have company again. And yet.

“So, this is what happens when you get old?”

Remus eyes are closed, but he knows only one person who has the tact, or lack thereof, to impose himself on a man’s bath.

“You forget basic human politeness and barge in on naked people taking baths? In that case, you’ve aged well.”

There is the sound of the door shutting softly and bare feet shuffling across tile, coming closer. “Not just any naked people. Though I’ll go if you’d—“

“It’s all right,” Remus says, a hand coming out of the water to say, _Stay, Padfoot_. The air is cooler than the water, and he quickly brings his hand back under the surface. “I would have invited you if I’d thought about it. If I thought you’d want to.”

He opens his eyes and finds Sirius hovering by the toilet, wearing a sheepish expression and too-large robes courtesy of Bill Weasley. He nods, granting permission for Sirius to step forward. This has been one of the stranger things he’s had to get used to since the start of the summer: Sirius’s behavior as a good dog treated badly. He looks for permission now, where in all the years they spent together before there was impulse and confidence to the point of arrogance. While Remus may have sometimes wished for a bit more temperance, this meek creature before him now isn’t the compromise he’d ever wanted.

It takes another nod, a stronger one and a murmur of his name, before Sirius shuffles to the bathtub, letting his robes fall. There’s nothing on beneath them, and Remus smiles, glad to see that not all of his confidence has been lost. Sirius steps into the tub, hissing at the first bite of the heat, but settles, letting their legs tangle as they try to fit together.

“I’d meant,” Sirius says, pulling his hair back into a knot, “that I don’t remember you needing a bath this far before the moon.”

Remus nods. “You’re right,” he says, and smiles at Sirius’s relieved face. “It starts sooner now. Lasts longer after. I’m worried Dumbledore is going to ask me to go seek out the packs. They don’t have heated indoor plumbing on the moors.”

Sirius scowls. “He better not.” It’s not merely out of concern for Remus’s system of self-care, Remus knows, but he can certainly appreciate Sirius’s more self-centered concerns, too.

“Now that school has started, I imagine we’ll get our marching orders again.”

“It got too quiet here,” says Sirius. He's frowning, but it’s more lonely than sad or angry. “I miss Harry.”

“Have you written to him, yet? Or would you like me to, if you’re worried about getting caught writing letters?”

“I’ll write soon, but you know it’s different. It was nice having him here. Even with everyone else all over, he was…”

“Family,” Remus finishes. “I know what you mean.”

They both go quiet, then; this house is a strange place to talk about family.

Remus shifts in the water, his foot brushing against Sirius in places he’s not yet been given liberty to brush. With a murmured apology, he sits straighter again, pulling his legs back so the tops of his knees poke out of the water.

“There’s room, Moony.” Now Sirius shifts, angling his legs to the side.

Back in the days of only one or two baths before the moon, they weren’t at opposite ends like this. There was no need to make room, because they shared space as they shared (almost) everything else. Back to chest, arms and legs entwined, fingers skimming the top of the water and bare skin in turn, the relaxation Remus needed came almost as much from the touch of another’s body as it did from the heat of the water. The baths after he lost it all were never quite as soothing as those were.

He hadn’t expected to want it all back so quickly. Letters of apology, explanation, and forgiveness had flown on hired wings for nearly a year, until Sirius had arrived on Remus’s doorstep, needing a bath of his own and a few weeks of fattening up. Remus hadn’t had much to offer—keeping himself at a healthy weight was always tricky when Galleons were so hard to come by—but they managed.

By the time Sirius received the order disguised as an off-hand request to gain access to 12 Grimmauld Place, they had recovered a small part of their former friendship. It felt like they were twelve years old again, teasing out secrets and learning habits, trying to find ways to fit in the same space—not a dorm room, now, but a small cottage, and now a physically larger but infinitely more oppressive townhouse in London.

The question of just how much of their past relationship they’d rediscover was growing close to a definitive answer now. Their friendship was sorted, and Padfoot’s place at Moony’s side during the moon was agreed upon even before the first time Remus had successfully cracked a joke at Sirius’s expense.

All that was left was the question of the physical relationship.

Then again, sharing a bath probably indicated where this was headed.

“Are you okay?” Remus asks, after several minutes have passed, and he hasn’t moved his legs to find the room Sirius was offering.

Sirius looks like he's about to be flippant, but then the good dog treated badly is back, and he drops his head and doesn’t speak.

Remus reaches under the water and wraps his fingers around Sirius’s ankle. “I mean it. You can tell me.”

“Of course I’m not all right,” Sirius says finally; he starts to pull his leg away, but Remus grips it more firmly. “I’d _left_.”

“I know,” Remus says, loosening his grip when he thinks Sirius won’t pull away, and he’s right. He strokes lazily with his fingers. “But now they’re gone, even if you have to be back for a little. _They_ aren’t coming back. It’s only me here. Sometimes there will be meetings and others will be here, but never them. Only the ones you chose, Padfoot.”

“I can smell them, though,” Sirius says, and his voice breaks over the sentence, and that breaks Remus’s heart, as if it hasn’t broken enough over this man.

“C’mere,” Remus whispers, patting his chest, the old commands they’d made up on a lark when they were teenagers and faffed around with trying to enter Padfoot into a sheepdog competition.

The good dog is still there, eager to please his master, and he’s not careful at all as he sits up and turns in the tub, water sloshing over the sides until he’s settled against Remus. Remus can feel his entire body relax in a way it hasn’t in nearly fifteen years.

Sirius isn’t quite as relaxed, though that’s not a surprise to Remus. “I didn’t think of that angle,” Remus whispers in Sirius’s ear, his hands running over Sirius’s arms with more pressure. It’s not quite a massage, but it’s staking a claim nonetheless. “I’m sorry. Tomorrow—how about that?—we’ll find some way to get rid of the old smells.”

“No,” Sirius murmurs, as he catches Remus’s hands and interlaces their fingers. “Then there’ll be nothing, and that… that was _there_ .” Remus doesn’t have to ask where _there_ is, even considering how little Sirius speaks of it. “I just wish Harry could have been around longer.”

Sirius's canine senses have been honed, spending so much time as Padfoot, but even Remus, spending only one night at a time as a wolf, understands how the canine sense of smell works. More than just covering up the old smells of Walburga, Orion, and Regulus, having Harry’s scent would bring back some of Hogwarts to this coffin of a house. There’d be some Lily, some James; there’d be the hints of broom polish and grass clippings.

Their fingers still locked, Remus wraps their arms together around Sirius and sighs. He doesn’t know what to say, but speaking isn’t what’s called for right now.

The stopper isn’t as tight as it used to be, probably, and Remus can hear the soft sound of water in the pipes. The charms he put on the tub have held the heat, but between Sirius's sloshing and the slow drain, the levels have dropped, and Remus has to decide if he wants to refill it, or if he should let it serve as a timer against staying here, away from smells and chores, here in the memory of this old monthly tradition.

Sirius breaks the silence. “I was afraid you were going to go,” he admits, “after the children went back to school. Like Molly and Arthur did. You have your own home.”

Remus nods. He can’t deny that he’d considered it. “It was an option. But I didn’t want to do that. Not if you couldn’t come with me.”

“You don’t trust me here alone.”

That is even harder to deny, though far more important to try. “More that I didn’t think you deserved to be left alone here. Or anywhere. You spent too much time alone when you didn’t deserve to.” He turns, pressing his face to the side of Sirius’s, his lips brushing Sirius’s cheek as he continues. “And I didn’t deserve to be alone, either. It’s hardly the same, but I spent nearly as much time alone as you did, and I didn’t want or deserve that, either.”

“You’re right. It’s not the same.” His voice is warmer than the words, though, and Remus can feel Sirius pull their arms tighter around him. “Don’t get me wrong, Moony. I’m grateful.”

“So am I. I’m grateful you have another chance.” That they both do, really. The chance to fix things. Maybe the chance with each other?

Sirius must be thinking along the same lines. “You haven’t tried to kiss me.”

“Should I have?” He doesn’t mean that he hasn’t wanted to, but it’s a delicate thing, starting a relationship over after all they’ve been through. “You haven’t, either, you realize.”

“Oi, I did, though,” Padfoot protests, and Remus can both see and hear the smile on his face as Sirius turns towards him. “On the day Harry came, as you left to go get him. ‘Advance Guard,’ and all that swot.”

Remus blinks, trying to remember. It was just a month ago; he doesn’t think it would be forgotten so quickly. “You… you tried to kiss me?”

“I was offering to spiff up your robes—“

“I remember that, telling you not to bother, getting a bit embarrassed by all the fuss.”

“Of _course_ you remember _that_ part, that makes me feel like a tit.” Sirius squeezes Remus’s hands. “Probably why you missed the next bit where I decided you looked dashing anyway, and everyone was reassuring Mad-Eye about something or other—“

“That we knew what to watch for in an imposter,” Remus supplies, earning a _tsk_ from Sirius at the interruption of his story for such an irrelevant comment.

“I leaned in,” Sirius continues, “and I was about to at least kiss your cheek, because it looked like you needed it, when my cockblocking cousin grabbed you to ask if she should do her hair purple or turquoise.”

“I said the violet looked lovely with her skin tone,” Remus says, and he laughs when Sirius growls in the back of his throat.

“ _That_ you remember, too! Flirting with Tonks instead of kissing me.”

“And yet,” Remus says, his laughter down to a snicker, “here you are, joining me in my bath. And here I am, very happy to have you here.”

Sirius lets out a soft _hmph_ and then says. “Well, I did my part. Quaffle’s in your pitch now, Remus Lupin, so you best keep that in mind when—“

He’s cut off when Remus presses their lips together. Remus is still smiling, so it’s not really a proper kiss, but it makes his point quite nicely. “I’m sorry I missed you trying to kiss me,” he whispers. “Please let me make it up to you now.”

He kisses Sirius better when Sirius inclines his head and the laughter gives way to soft sighs. The water has drained enough so that they don’t lose any over the edge when Sirius turns. They sit in the middle of the tub together, legs around each other as they kiss deeper, learning each other’s aged bodies.

When they fall asleep later, it’s as men relaxed by hot water and curious hands and familiar mouths. There’s still more of their old relationship to rediscover, but it’s Full in less than a week, and Remus isn’t twenty anymore. There will be more baths to come in the next few nights, and they have all the time in the world.


End file.
